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Make Your Own Bible

I had a very intense and traditional Christian education as a child, and spent a lot of time reading the Bible (my party trick is reciting the books of the Bible in less than 30 seconds!). When I left Christianity behind, the Bible happily went with it, though that knowledge came in mighty handy in university english literature classes and trivia quizes.

I never got much lasting inspiration from the Bible, finding the formal language of the King James Version I was raised with impenetrable, only reinforcing the stark realization that finding a personal relationship with the Creator wasn’t possible for me through Christianity.

I did always slightly envy those who found great comfort and strength from the Bible, not least my mother, who hosted a weekly study group in our house many years and has recently been watching online Bible studies on YouTube. It seemed a handy source for instant comfort and help, Bible verses at the ready for all situations and challenges.

A few years ago I gathered the scraps of quotes, poems and inspirational bits and bobs I had floating about in various notebooks and cubby holes and decided to plonk them all in one place for easy reference, create my own Bible, something I could go to for inspiration and guidance and succour. There are poems, quotes from spiritual leaders like Thich Nhat Hann, things I heard on podcasts or movies, excerpts from novels, and even a few Tweets.

Whenever I read or hear something that makes me sit up, open my eyes a little wider, slow down and think, “this is important, I need to remember this”, I pop it in my green-covered notebook, knowing future me would want to feel that same tingle and joy again and again.

I try to pick up my little book every morning and read whatever comes next, my own form of non-secular Bible study. Today was a poem from Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz.

I remember first reading this poem and sinking into the simple peace and harmony he so beautifully described. Milosz reminds me of why I love to garden, getting lost in the moment of standing in the solid, red dirt under the limitless sky next to a river, everything in its place, thinking of nothing but the life all around me. Perfect happiness.

Consider writing your own holy book, or unholy book, your choice. For as it says in the book of Thelma, Chapter 3, Verses 7-9:

Do it, all ye who have strayed from the narrow path to stumble about in the wide world. Write the Book thou wouldst wished to have been given when first ye asked the good questions and received only poor answers. Making thine way in the world today takes everything thou’s got, taking a break from all thine worries sure would help a lot. Cheers/Amen.

Small victories

Yesterday I had two DIY victories. One was repairing a bathroom sink that wouldn’t hold water when the stopper was in place. Turns out it was easily fixed by undoing the nut underneath, lifting the drain piece up, removing the disgusting plumber’s putty that had started to disintegrate, putting a generous amount of fresh putty around the drain, and reattaching the whole thing.

The other repair success was a burner on our Maytag MGS5770 gas stove that was sometimes difficult to light. A repair person who fixed something else on the stove a few years ago said the whole burner would have to be replaced, at a cost of $50-$75 for the part plus a $75 service call, but it wasn’t bad enough to bother with that expense and faff.

My list of home repair projects has benefited from the latest pandemic advice to stay at home, which we have been doing since before Christmas anyway, so I decided to tackle this burner. When cleaning the burner holes didn’t improve anything, I examined one of the other burners and observed how the spark from the electrode lit the gas coming out of a hole directly under it. On the faulty burner, that electrode was ever so slightly twisted, perhaps a couple of millimetres off, so I took a pair of pliers and gently twisted the electrode so it pointed directly down over that hole. It worked perfectly, and now the burner lights immediately and much more safely.

As these little niggling projects had simmered away in the background for years, they weren’t obviously going to massively change our lives, but the small victories were satisfying and very much felt like putting things in order in a disordered world.

Ignitor at 6 o’clock
Me in my father’s propane delivery truck circa 1969 reminding you to be careful when working on anything powered by gas…never mind that he used to drop the shiny 100 pound tanks in the background off the back of this flat-bed truck and roll them across people’s lawns by kicking them with his foot.

Field Notes

Putting to bed my second little note book where I recorded my comings and goings in case I needed to do COVID-19 contact tracing. Our chief public health officer suggested we do this in the early weeks of the pandemic and I stuck to it, for the most part. I have long kept a brief daily journal as well, recording weather conditions and highlights of the day, but this little pandemic record is all about practical movement and contact, not how I felt and experienced life.

While I would tell anyone who asked that I live in a remote place and don’t see that many people, I have filled 48 pages since May 2021 with my interactions and gadding about, both the well-worn paths to the grocery store, Samuel’s Coffee House and the homes of friends and family, and the unique experiences of harvesting birch bark with new friends and sitting with my mother in the hospital.

In a couple of weeks, once my chance of being a superspreader has hopefully passed, I will set this little record down under a pile of branches in the woods to melt back into the earth, as if it all had never really happened.

Trees

Firs are probably my favourite type of tree. They were always the Christmas tree of choice when we went to the woods during my childhood, their soft flat needles and lovely smell the very essence of the holiday.

A few firs close to our house have grown to the point where they should probably be removed before they get much bigger. Firs seem to have a shortish life span, die quickly, rot inside and tumble down. I need to be more ruthless in keeping them cleared, but it’s difficult when they look so lovely when fresh winter snow decorates them outside our door!

I’m trying, as much as possible, to let nature do what it wants on the land I live on, so cutting down any tree is a bit uncomfortable but sometimes necessary and now always well thought out. It’s a funny balancing act, this rewilding instinct I have developed. When I started this journey I thought I was rewilding the land, but, of course, I’m really rewilding myself, uniting with nature rather than trying to change it to always suit my needs or ideals. Nature always wins, but humans consistently believe we can control nature, and we never can. We are a funny animal.

If you are on PEI and want to pick up a free tree for your holidays, I have a few between 6 and 10 feet tall and would be happy to have them be adored and adorned by you. They are a natural, unshaped tree – more Victoria and Albert odd than Disney World perfect – but will smell lovely and are chemical free. I possess many manual and motorized felling tools to assist the culling. Wear a toque, plaid shirt and wool mittens and have a real PEI heritage moment! They had a good life, I will miss their presence, but will not miss them toppling onto my house during a storm when I’m an old lady.

Victoria and Albert with one of my trees…of course not, they live too far from PEI!

Smell-o-rama

Bought a few items today at a used clothing sale in Summerside that will benefit the Prince County Hospital. I just tried on what looks like a brand new hoodie from Canadian fashion staple Roots, a store I have never set foot in, so I’m probably a bad Canadian! The hoodie fits perfectly, but I quickly took it off again because of the perfume smell coming from it. I can still taste that smell in my mouth, yuck!

I’ve used unscented “eco” products forever, (unscented Tru Earth laundry strips is what I use presently) so am always surprised how heavily scented laundry products are now. Breathing these chemicals in every day can’t be good for a person. What are we doing to ourselves? Out on the clothesline goes the hoodie!

The Plan

Even before the Canadian federal election was called, the leader of the Conservative party sent each of us in our household a separate letter outlining his recovery plan to fix everything that is wrong with Canada (except, it seems, our relationships with Indigenous peoples, the climate and the electoral system, my top three issues this election). Three more letters arrived this week. Waste of resources, waste of beautiful trees.

Thought I’d at least mine this dreck for art, so here are three found poems. I did try to construct a jolly sounding poem, but it wasn’t possible from the doom and gloom bricks I was given.

Mr. Vivian
Holding Heavily
Economic Vision

Hot enough to fry an egg

Finding our hens panting in their nesting boxes on this sweltering day reminded me I was going to make a screen door for the henhouse. Kind of late to start today, so found this mysterious screen from heaven-knows-what and stuck it in the door with clamps.

The henhouse started life as a smelt shack about 60 years ago and was my playhouse from about 1968 until I was probably far too old to be playing. It has been a henhouse for the past four years. It is in remarkably good shape for something that was basically ignored for three decades, with only a tiny bit of rot in one corner that I easily fixed with my basic carpentry skills. It could use a fresh coat of paint. And it still needs a screen door.

Kindness just happens

Last week I noticed something odd with the wood trim around our kitchen window. Our guest bedroom is above our kitchen, and on inspection I found some damp, warped hardwood floor and mould in the corner hidden behind a bedside table, sign of a radiator leak that had probably been going on for weeks, if not months.

All the gory details of how this is going to be fixed are not entirely clear or important. As the nice fellow from the disaster restoration company reminded me, there aren’t any problems with a house that can’t be fixed with time and money. We are all alive and healthy, and that is what is most important.

One of the tools I have gained from reading about Stoicism is the idea of practising how to deal with difficult people or situations. I try to remind myself each morning that I might encounter things through the day that will challenge and even upset me, and while I can’t control those things or people, I can control my reaction to them and attempt to remain calm and even-tempered, which is much better for me and those around me.

Sounds great, and sometimes I achieve that equilibrium during upsetting situations, but I got overwhelmed at one point this week and complained to Steven it was unfair and too much, that I try to be a good person and deserve better than having to deal with this complicated emergency renovation. He replied with something very helpful and profound: “This isn’t happening to you; it is just happening.”

That instantly put everything back into context, calmed me down, helped me step back and observe. These problems aren’t divine retribution, it’s just water being drawn earthward by gravity through our walls and flooring. Not ideal, but just the way water works on this planet!

While there is nothing much fun about having large chunks of walls and hardwood flooring ripped up, I am touched by how kind everyone has been, from the insurance company adjustor to the remediation company staff, building supply folks, our plumber arriving on a day off to repair the radiator, everyone helpful, gentle, good humoured, considerate. Not promising the world, not saying it is going to be easy, but saying it will all be fixed, and, most importantly, saying they will help. Kindness upon kindness.

Steven and I drove to Charlottetown yesterday to run a quick errand and escape the loud rattling dehumidifiers. We had so many pleasant interactions throughout the day, gifts literal and figurative, of time and talent and presence. It is when things aren’t going well that the kindness of others shines most brightly, and connects most deeply.

As we made our way home, we dropped into one of my favourite spots in Summerside, Samuel’s Coffee House. I was so happy to see A. behind the counter, a kind reader of this blog and an excellent writer herself. I ordered a cortado (now that I know I can!) and referencing my recent post on the matter, A. offered to make it in a glass. It was perfection, a gift just for me, made with kindness and caring. It tipped the world in my favour. Everything will be all right.

The best cortado.

It’s the little things

I searched the Miele Canada website for a replacement part for our S7000 upright vacuum cleaner. They didn’t what I needed, but they do have 3D4U, a series of 3D printing files that anyone can download from Thingiverse. These are accessories rather than spare parts: an attachment to vacuum dust while you drill a hole, smaller-than-normal nozzle attachments for cleaning, a coffee bag clip that lets you add a pouring nozzle to your bag of beans, even an attachment to help you blow soap bubbles with your vacuum!

Miele say they are the first domestic appliance manufacturer to offer 3D printing accessories. That’s a great first step, and here’s hoping Miele and all other manufacturers of everything start making free 3D printing files of their spare parts available, especially for people like me who prefer to fix things when I can to keep as much as possible out the waste stream.

It’s impossible for companies to keep every part of every machine they have ever made in stock, but they could easily make the 3D printing files available. How many small appliances get tossed every year because a knob breaks or a little part cracks? I had to toss a stick blender last year only because a cheap plastic gear stripped after a few years of occasional use. I don’t own a 3D printer, but our public library system has some available, and perhaps printing kiosks could be a small business in future (if they aren’t already).

Zip ties to the rescue